One round to go
Just one round to go. It seems so surreal that in 7 days I will be going in for my final round of chemo. In some ways it feels like just yesterday I was facing 8 rounds of chemo not knowing what to expect. While in other ways it seems like it’s been a lifetime since I felt like my body was my own. While yes there have been good days, the overwhelming majority of days have been hard, some of the hardest I have faced. The first 4 rounds of AC chemo were barbaric. While the last 3 rounds of taxol side effects have paled in comparison to the AC chemo, the bone pain has been horrific. I find myself celebrating being done but quickly being hit with the realization that I am not done. I still have radiation and endocrine therapy to follow. Yet, something about the end of chemo somehow feels that the worst is soon to be behind me.
By the end of round 8 I will have spent 40 plus hours in the Cancer Center building with almost 30 of those hours just sitting in the chemo chair. 8 times they will have shoved a giant needle into the surgically implanted port in my chest then pumped my body full of poison that actually requires the nurses to suit up in what is effectively the equivalent of a hazmat suit to administer. Soon will be the last time I will have to sit with my fingertips on ice for 3 hours to prevent neuropathy and the last time I will have to anxiously await the steroids given in my pre meds to wear off and the side effects to set in. 8 seemed impossible, I wanted to quit before I started and so many times along the way…but I knew I could not. All the moments I missed with my girls because I was too sick to care for them will be traded in for moments I won’t miss because I fought. Because I endured I will get to watch them grow, I will get to be around for them grow, celebrate their birthdays, see the joy on their faces Christmas mornings, to hold their hands and hug them when they need it most and that makes all of this worth it. I will persist! Even though chemo is not the end, there is so much hope and relief wrapped up in that 8th treatment.
As my chemo chapter comes to a close I am going to take this week to reflect back on the journey it has been so far.